Sex-change patient's file put on the net

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A sex-change recipient, whose highly sensitive medical records were published on the internet after a hospital error, was paid $1600 and offered free counselling by the Health Department to stop her taking legal action.

Sally Black's (not her real name) psychiatry case-management file from St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, contained information about her history of self-harm, and the fact she was taking hormonal medication to enable her to live as a female.

Ms Black, 25, spoke to The Sun-Herald because she was still angry about how she was treated by the management of St Vincent's and the NSW Health Department.

"It was the process. They screwed me over," the woman said. "What makes me most angry is that they couldn't say sorry."

In June 2002 a student researching health case management directed Ms Black to a mental health service website where she saw her name, birth date, address and medical record number.

Linked to the site was her case-management file, containing extremely sensitive information.

Ms Black said she saw a list of a dozen patients, some whom had their HIV positive status recorded.

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The hospital immediately took the records off the internet after being alerted by Ms Black.

But Ms Black said she was ignored by senior staff and received no answer from a request to the hospital for an investigation. Frustrated, she contacted the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, which asked NSW Health to review the matter.

A South East Area Health Service internal review last June acknowledged Ms Black's medical records inadvertently had been on a publicly accessible web page.

St Vincent's Hospital spokesman David Faktor said the hospital had upgraded the security of its online records to ensure it would not happen again.

"We sincerely apologised [to Ms Black]. It was a technical error that caused the problem," he said.

Opposition health spokesman Barry O'Farrell said Ms Black's case demonstrated how easily private information could be disclosed if people putting records on a hospital's internal intranet are not properly skilled.

Last month, the State Government announced the start of a trial of Health e-link, an electronic health system, which gives doctors online access to their patients' detailed medical histories. The system eventually will be introduced throughout the state.

The Minister for Health, Morris Iemma, said all information on the Health e-link system would be password protected.